@stuartk
I like that cut. I'll stream them. I have a few Poco albums that I play a lot. To be quite honest, I'm not a fan of genres. That's one of the reasons I moved from the Jazz Aficianado group. They seemed to have a exacting conception of "jazz," and I just like what I like. You said you aren't a fan of Freddie Hubbard's "First Light" and "Red Clay," but I don't think you'd say they aren't jazz albums. They're just something that doesn't hit you. I just like what I like and no longer worry about it. I used to want to be cool. Now I'm too old to be cool, and I really don't care.
I know that Charlie Parker is considered a genius, but I hardly ever play him. My jazz ear was developed later in the sixties and seventies. Although I go to hear current groups and sometimes I like current jazz.
As a musician, I think you are more aware of the craftsmanship. I can appreciate it, but I don't listen to music to appreciate how good the players are. One exception might be classical music. I've listened to it long enough to develop more of an ear.
I picked up an album of Toscanini and Horowitz playing some piano concerto I knew well. I thought it was so awful, I had to look it up. Horowitz was married to Toscanini's daughter and there was tension between son-in-law and father-in-law. And did it show in the recording! And I am attuned enough in classical music to pick it up. A classical music DJ named Jim Svejda used to bad-mouth von Karajan so badly, but I just figured maybe he didn't like that von Karajan had played under Hitler. But over the years, I have come to find that I agree. Almost everything I have by von Karajan I don't like, with the exception of Mozart's Requiem. His schtick works with that particular piece of music.
In popular music, I dont really notice how good the musicians are. But I think I lean toward good musicianship instinctively.
But back to generes, I think they can limit people's taste. I had a male adult bias against Taylor Swift. Girl-teen music. But I have granddaughters and they listened to her, and I found I like some of her stuff. I listen to her "Red" album. I keep trying to punch my way out of the paper bags that age surrounds us with. Most people don't change their taste in music and art much past the age of thirty.
On the prog rock front, I have several Buddha Box CDs. Do they count? And I also have a number of Massive Attack albums, and how about The Cocteau Twins?
